Critic's Choice

Golden is the most modest indie supergroup imaginable. The band, which appears on Tuesday, August 13, at the 15th Street Tavern alongside Rye Coalition, Kind of Like Spitting and the Gravity Index, sports an impressive underground pedigree. Alex Minoff, who splits singing and guitar-playing duties with Ian Eagleson, has logged time in Six Finger Satellite and the Make Up, drummer Jon Theodore has worked with Royal Trux, Palace and Mars Volta, and bassist Philip Manley is part of Trans Am. In spite of such credentials, Apollo Stars, Golden's fourth disc, emerges as a hype-free, party-time charmer that's utterly lacking in pretense and self-consciousness. The combo's twisted takes on blues, funk and alt-rock may seem a bit arch at times, but tunes such as "Feel This Flow" and "The Other Side of the Sun," with its cheerfully absurd lyrics ("Chicken bone!/The Superdome!"), provide plenty of sweaty fun nonetheless. In other words, Golden is solid.